Gender Check Ultrasound

Hello Hello. I am waaay behind on the blog. Maybe cause it's Christmas-time (not that I've done a ton of Christmas preparation... I haven't sent any of my missionaries their Christmas packages yet!!! I think I need deadlines)... maybe it's cause I have a large family and it's getting harder to do the things I want to do. Last week I did prepare a lot for gospel doctrine yesterday - a discussion on the Family Proclamation. I haven't practiced violin as much as I want. I haven't been exercising. Maybe I'm anemic. I did lab work today, so we'll find out about that soon enough. 

Ok, so I did actually write that above on Dec 20. Now it is Feb 3rd, and it is still true that I am way behind on the blog. Only a few more entries until I'm done with December... When it was Dec 20th, though, we had not told most our children that we were expecting. I did go in that day to a doctor appointment, where I had a gender check ultrasound. We were excited to be able to deliver to Lily one of her Christmas wishes - a baby sister. Yes, it's a girl. I went by Zurchers on the way home and picked up some "It's a girl" pencils and I also got this hat for Peter, and we gave it to him on Christmas Eve as a reveal present to him and an early Christmas surprise for all the kids. 

We are all excited and looking forward to welcoming this little girl into our eternal family. Two more pictures for "today" (aka Dec 20th) - a cute little boy named Owen who is excited for Christmas - 

And a letter he wrote to Santa. He was getting it ready to give to him with the milk and cookies on Christmas Eve - 

"To Santa From Owen. Santa you are nice. Thanks for the presents. Thanks for the treats. To Santa: We gave you cookies. Star cookies too and Christmas Tree cookies too. You are sweet. I love you and you love me too."

Christmas Concert

Happy Birthday Melodie!! God gave us a beautiful winter sunrise in your honor. I took a picture of it, but it didn't do it justice. I hope Brazil gave her a lovely day! Today we had church which was wonderful as always, and then tonight Sophi and Natalie had a Christmas concert. 

It was held at my parent's ward chapel and was super crowded already when we got there. My parents came and Corey's parents. They couldn't tell where Natalie and Sophi were, so I took a pic even though I was pretty far away too, zoomed in, and tried to point them out- 

The concert was out here because Miss Amy did the concert with another violin school and their teacher lady is in my parent's Stake and this is like something she does every year. But I think she's going to stop teaching soon so Miss Amy is going to maybe take on the tradition? It was fun to be in my old ward house. It was a good place to grow up and have those developing years of my childhood. Their cultural hall/gym was so fancily decorated! My mom said that some group in the church does it (maybe take turns each year?) and they leave it up all month for all the different wards to use as needed and some families even hold family parties there. It was cool and very pretty and fun. Pretty good idea to get it all fancied up and then leave it and share it. After the performance with Wayne and JeNeal - 

They were late coming in, cause after they got here tonight, they were closing up their car, and the sliding door on their Honda Odyssey wouldn't close!!! It was stuck open! Just like happened to us! Only we were lucky cause ours happened at home in our garage. They had to trust that no one would steal anything from their car while they were in watching the performance, and then they hurried out to go home and had to drive in the cold winter air for 20 minutes with the door open (cause they didn't take the freeway) Brr!! I was glad it was all fresh on my mind from October, so I told Wayne that from what I just learned, the part is on back order and that our mechanic just cut the wire for us. But darn, such a pain. Not as bad as life at Valley Forge, but still, I felt sorry for them to have to drive home in the cold wind. Quick pic with my parent's too - 

Daniel was the only sibling that came to show support. All the kids at home asked me if there would be refreshments "I doubt it" but Daniel still came, and there were cookies, so he went to town and let everyone at home know they had missed out. The Christmas tree cookies were his favorite. A picture with Miss Amy - 

The girls did a great job. They have a few more performances this week - like all day on Tuesday and then some Orchestra performances on Friday before school lets out for the winter break. 

Christmas-ing

We got home from Park City around noon today. The kids were eager to set up the tree. I said "Not until the house gets cleaned up!" (which I had said we had to do before Park City but didn't quite finish...) So those that wanted to Christmas up the house had to unpack, clean their rooms, practice, and such. Abi worked hard since she was the one who wanted the trees up the most. As she vacuumed up the front room, she thought she saw an earring that looked like my gold and diamond earrings that I had let Natalie borrow for a few days (since her ears were infected). Someone one of the earrings was on the floor in the front room. Abi realized what it was after she had already vacuumed it up. She called Natalie over to see if she was wearing both earrings... nope. It must have fallen out when Natalie was wrestling with Joseph in the front room. Ok, so we start to try and pick out the dust and dirt from the bag and set it out on paper towels along the floor, and we shake and poke through it looking for the earring.

No luck. Finally we cut open the bag. Still nothing. Natalie kinda looks through those again and I go to the vacuum to see if it is stuck in the brush or the hose somewhere.

After having no luck during our previous 20 minutes of searching, Natalie said a prayer for God's hlep, and shortly after than, there we gratefully found it in the hose. Whew! Then we finished vacuuming, and THEN we were ready to bring up the trees. Two lights on the white tree were out, and have been burned out for the past 2 years I think, so this year we finally decided to get it all the way off. Abi and I cut the wires with scissors. 

It took a while, but we did it. The lights on the bottom of the tree still work, but they are a soft white and the white strands of lights I have for the top are bright LED lights... so next year we might cut those off of the bottom so that all the lights will be uniform, but we called it good for today and finished putting up the tree. The boys helped decorate. Everyone was in their Santa Hats. 

And done - we've got our two trees up and once again I didn't have to do very much of it, so yay.

Father and Elders

Tonight Father David came over for dinner. The missionaries from our stake reached out to us on Monday last week, after Ethan sent them several referrals of our neighbors and people they might be able to teach. So we told them what is going on with neighbors and who might be interested. Ethan also told them about Iveth and Diego and Father David. We told them that Iveth and Diego really are not interested at all. We had a good friendship with them, and still mostly do, but it changed after we invited them to Sophi's baptism. After that invitation, they've kinda closed up. I googled some stuff about baptism in the Catholic church, and I think for their baptisms, people who attend are like endorsing it, so maybe they just didn't want to endorse Sophia being baptized into a religious they think is false? I don't know, but things haven't been the same since then. But Father David was cool talking about religion. So they asked if they could come over today when he was here. Corey was a little hesitant, since we're still gauging if he has any interest (we've extended a few invitations and Corey gave him the book Saints for Christmas). Corey sent Father David a well worded text and Father D said it would be fine with him if the missionaries joined us, so yay! It made for a very fun and interesting evening. The missionaries can't eat with any members though, so we had dinner at 5 with just him, and then the missionaries joined us at 6 after we were finished eating. We had a little visit in the front room - Elders on the left, Father David...

then Wes, Corey and me

After a short visit, Wesley brought out his portable ping pong set and Wes and Father David had a game while the missionaries kept score. Father David won. Then it was Elder Sibbett's turn -

Elder Sibbett won that match. They told us on Monday that sometimes they do a think "We beat you, we teach you" but they didn't have that deal tonight. After a game of ping pong, they helped Father David get set up with FamilySearch on his phone. As Elder Sibbett was doing that, Natalie brought out her Book of Mormon and was asking questions to the other Elder (can't remember his name) about the restoration and God and she was sharing what she is doing to get ready for her baptism in the summer. 

Then she got out the Friend magazine which gave her more topics to discuss. It was really cute to hear her. 

She inserted herself right in the middle of the three of them and was bringing up some good doctrinal questions which was cute. Pretty smart 7 year old. Father David got all set up and found some of his family tree.

Then he used the bathroom right when the Elders had to leave so he came out and they were gone without saying goodbye, which was too bad, because Father David stayed for over two more hours. That would have been fun for him and the missionaries to talk more. Last time Father David had to leave right at 7, and we told the missionaries that, so maybe that's why they took off or maybe they had an appointment. But Father David's appointment cancelled, so he and Corey talked until past 9:30. It was fun and they got into some good stuff, like the Arian controversy and some ideas about the current pope. From what we can tell, Father D and Iveth and Diego are all a bit conspiratorial about covid and the vaccine and other world events. We plan to pry into their thinking during future gatherings. 

(Sunday Update:) I shared about this visit with Father David and the Elders on facebook, mostly since it's in such contrast to the relationships we see around political differences in the news: "We enjoyed having our friend Father David over for dinner last night and are grateful that he was willing to let us invite our local missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ join us. They played ping pong, Father David got set up to do family history via FamilySearch app, and we had a lovely visit. I’m thankful for examples like this that I see everyday - people of different beliefs and opinions being civil, kind, and friendly!"

There are two comments that made me smile from friends that grew up in my neighborhood with me: Melanie: "THIS! Love it!" and Kiley: "Oh my goodness, this is the most uplifting post I’ve seen in weeks!!! I completely agree, we don’t all have to think and be the same in order to be kind to each other. The world would be so different right now if everyone lived this way. Thank you for posting!"

(Back to Saturday...) So that was fun. A few more pictures from this weekend: On most nights, we put Peter to bed in his room. Sometime during the night, usually between midnight and 2, he wakes up, cries, and comes into our room on his own if I remember to leave it unlocked, or he'll cry at the door until I open it. And then we lay down on the floor together. I slept on the floor with him for a long time when I nursed him, cause the floor wouldn't move when I tried to sneak away. The floor still works well now for that same reason. Plus I like the plush rug. On most mornings, he's tucked over on some corner of the shag carpet and I'm able to leave to make oatmeal, take carpool, and get kids off to school. And then some mornings, like yesterday morning, he is very comfortably asleep right on top of me. Good thing it was online Friday.

He was nestled right up between my legs. Pretty cute little guy. I'm glad he is still my baby sometimes. 

Wesley made this cool house for his 3D design class. Wesley is going to become an architect and make me a beautiful home someday, and he's gonna give us a great deal on it too!

One productive (maybe) thing I did this weekend, was I went through my unread emails and was able to get it from 4100 to 2870. I'm almost as behind on emails as I am on the blog! (Confession: the day that I'm finally finishing this draft is March 15) But with this post completed,  I am now officially finished with January, yay! Goodnight

Dolls and Drawings

The girls have been busy making clothes for their DC Superhero girl dolls. They got into my sewing stuff and have used it all and made a mess. 

They've done it before... Here's a link to when Abi made barbie dresses two years ago, and another time in 2019. This time it was mostly Lily and Sophi. I'm glad they are being creative and when they do things of their own initiative.

Natalie wrote letters today to Melodie and Ethan and wanted me to mail them. She wrote these on her own, and I thought they were really cute - 

Dear Mel, I hope U had a Great Christmas & I Love like love the earings U gave me. There so prety. UR very nice & I'm excited for us to get ice cream when U get home. Love Natalie to: Mel Look on the Back

And this one to Ethan made me lol - HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dear Ethan hope U had a great (look on back) Christmas & Your The Best & UR very very nice & Hyrum got Drugs & AWESOME. Hope we can hang out more! Love Natalie To: Ethan

The little comment about Hyrum that was then rescinded made me smile, I'm sure it will give Ethan a good laugh too! Two other drawings - this one that Lily did on her tithing envelope two months ago -

And this one from October too, from a book that Sophi was working on, looks like it's about  a popular guy that all the girls are going crazy for, and he is trying to impress the main character but she is not impressed, cause "looks is not love"

The kids use a lot of paper and make lots of drawings and books and messes, but it's all good, I'm a little less up tight about it than I have been in the past, (I think/hope!)

Oh, one other thing - on New Years Eve, when the clock struck 12 (we go by New York time so it was 10 here in Utah) we welcomed the new year and the kids ran around the house barefoot to participate in the Socially Distanced Polar Bear Challenge that we usually do at the cabin with our neighbors. So for the record, Wes, Abi, Lily, Sophi, and Natalie all participated. Natalie was the only one I got a picture of:

Also, after a full day of skiing, Corey was done and so he tag teamed me and headed to bed. After he turned in, the kids noticed there were a lot of fire trucks across the tree farm. Wesley investigated, and told us that the neighbors house was on fire. 

I couldn't see it at first from inside the house, but then I did. I went outside and across the street to see better and see if there was anyone I could talk to or help. I did end up texting quite a few people and learned what was happening and that everyone got out ok. The house was left in ruins. It didn't totally burn to the ground, but it's destroyed. We all got out of the way when the fire truck came in front of our house to try and get the fire hydrant. 

There was a hydrant by the house that was on fire, but it was dried out so there was a problem there but finally they were able to get water up to fight the flames. Not how they ever thought they'd be starting off their year, right? I told Corey about it this morning and he and I walked over to take a look. You could see the sky through the window where the roof was gone. It was pretty bad. I'm glad that their beautiful yard looks ok and that the fire didn't spread to the other homes. Everyone was out last night and they didn't know what would happen, so they are all counting their blessings. 

Wisdom Teeth Guy

Last night, Wesley helped me start to set up my new iPhone that Corey surprised me with for Christmas. I don’t know why, but I find iPhones a little intimidating because there’s like no buttons to push hardly. But I deleted some stuff off of my old android so that I had space to download the move to iOS app and then Wes helped me finally get all of that got transferred over last night. So this morning it was kind of ready to go, I put on the screen protector which is really nice, and then I told Abi I would let her go to Ross while I went to the store and get my blood drawn. She got ready and came with me. We went by Walmart first and I bought a pop socket which is just like a pink and peach and white marble kind which look nice with the pastel green color of my phone. Abi thought I should get the avocado but it was a little too playful for me. And then I took her to Ross and I went by to get my blood drawn. We should find out tomorrow what the numbers are to verify if the pregnancy has or has not miscarried. I'm certain it has. And I think I am leaning towards just waiting for my body to miscarry on its own. Unlike when I’m pregnant, I’m not in a rush right now to get this over with, I’m OK to let it take a week or two. I guess if it takes three then I’ll have to reconsider.

So this morning I went to get my blood drawn again, and then after that I went to Costco got lotta stuff then went to pick up Abi went shopping at Ross I got home at 1:30 and Hyrum helped me unload the car and then he got in and we headed down to Orem for his wisdom teeth extraction from the wisdom teeth guys. 

We just decided to do this on Monday - backstory: Corey resigned from his job at Rivet two weeks ago and is consulting again. Even though he stopped working there on the 15th, our insurance with them is going to go through the end of the month, so that was nice of them. I've gotten our private insurance all set up - thanks to Mike Russell for his help, he's awesome. If you ever need private health insurance, give him a call. He didn't send me a bill last time, and didn't say anything about payment this time, so I'm hoping he gets some kind of commission from Select Health. Anyway, with Rivet, we also have dental insurance though Thursday, and since we have that, we thought it might be good to take care of Hyrum's wisdom teeth. We're doing this last minute, aka the last week with our dental insurance, but I figured I'd called to check out our options. On Monday I called JBR Clinical Research, where Joseph and Melodie both went, but Hyrum didn't qualify for their current study, and who knows if he'd qualify for the study next month or the month after that. We tried a few times with Ethan and he didn't end up qualifying twice, and then covid happened, but we had to get it done, so we were lucky that we happened to have dental insurance for him when we did get it done before his mission. So, we have a few months before we need to stress about Hyrum getting it done, but instead of waiting around to see if if JBR works and risking having to pay for it without insurance, which could be $800 - $1200 bucks, we decided to just go with the Wisdom Teeth Guys again and do it now, to play it safe. They quoted me $200-$250. That sounded reasonable, so I booked it. They didn't have any openings in Sandy, but did have Tuesday in Layton, or Wednesday in Orem. We opted for Orem, and so I took him today. His appointment was at 3. We left at 1:45. It was good that we gave ourselves 70+ minutes for the drive, because google maps took us to the wrong location on University Avenue. We arrived around 2:40. Peter was asleep in the car, so I sent Hyrum in to try to find their office with no luck. Then I called them and they said they had moved, gave us the correct address, and then we have 10 more minutes to drive over there. We just made it on time for 3 o’clock appointment at the "Utah Valley Dental Assisting with Dr. Ben Hilton" at the Cherry Tree "Professional" Plaza, which didn’t look that professional. 

I was able to sit in the car for a bit and Peter kept napping. Then Hyrum said I needed to sign something, so I woke up P and we went in.

Peter still waking up. He was perfectly behaved. A little grouchy, but didn't let it show.

I signed some stuff, she told me about his recovery, I was worried I had to remember it all but then she gave me a few papers, yay. They handed me Hyrum's glasses, and the IV is in. You ready for this, H?

Peter and I practiced our ABC's out in the lobby. 

Utah Valley Dental Assisting - UVDA

Peter got the A right, but that was it. He called the D a B, and the V "W", and didn't care about U. Still pretty good for a one year old. All of a sudden, I hear some laughing, and I could tell it was Hyrum. I could see him in his chair from the lobby window, and I thought I started recording then, but it's a new phone and I was on video but wasn't recording. I didn't realize it until we were 5 minutes into Hyrum being high and I fear I missed a lot of the best parts, but oh well, nothing I could do about it - 

Hyrum was laughing so hard - and that made Peter laugh and it was so funny to see the two of them laughing at each other, the dental assistants were all laughing too cause of Peter. That was the main part that I was sad to have missed, and of course Hyrum talking. I realized I wasn't recording when I tried to take a still photo of the video and noticed it wasn't in video. Then I started recording. So here's a long 9 minute raw footage video of Hyrum on drugs, cause I don't have time to edit. Hyrum hasn't given me permission to post the video, so it's unlisted, but I still want to share it. Hyrum hasn't seen it yet, but Hyrum don't be embarrassed! You did great for a post-op wisdom tooth patient, there is nothing to be ashamed of. But maybe I'll remove the link if you insist. 

Feeling a little bit like he can think - talking to a friend, some of the thoughts he shared with Aidan: 

"I got new ski boots and I have a new ski technique down but I’m not going to encourage you guys to go skiing because when we went to the youth activities and you guys were going down the bumpy hills and I was like wow you’re like so darn good and I was like that’s crazy! I can’t die... so I went down the easier way.  Ha guys I wish I could just be like this all the time I just feel (laugh) so happy and wouldn’t matter people are mean to me, I’ll just say "it doesn’t matter, I’m happy!" ...yeah it doesn’t matter, did you finish your college applications? Where did you apply? Did you get accepted to BYU Idaho, YES!! We should go there and we can be roommates, I heard that BYU Idaho guy to girl ratio is amaaaazing, I don't have a girlfriend ha ha I’m a bachelor no you should get on discord I’ll do that right now. I see very well. Did you send a message on the Guys chat? Tell the boys to get on discord, I'm as high as a kite and YES! All right... will do"

So back at home, I was attending to Hyrum and catching up on being gone for most of the day and to help me, I brought out the tv to babysit Peter. I had Joseph put it away on Christmas, cause this little guy was freaking out about watching Disney Cars 3, which is seriously the dumbest movie, and we're all sick of it, but Peter loves it. But the tv has been in my closet for 5 days, so Peter really enjoyed me finally letting him veg out...

So relaxed... enjoying watching Mater and McQueen with two cars in his hands.

I've been trying to remember how the recovery went for his siblings. Joseph and Mel were both swollen, and Joseph had some discoloration, Ethan did not swell at all, maybe cause he iced it so well? So Hyrum is keeping the ice on and hopefully he won't get swollen, we'll see!

One finally funny note - tonight Corey worked late because he had a lot of interruptions during the day. One of them calls was from our friend Shelina who is feeling a little too pressured by the missionaries in Mexico to get baptized, so Corey talked with her, and then Corey also got a text from Father David tonight and Corey called him back. Father D said that he's so impressed with the LDS church and LDS families and how he thinks a lot of the Catholics are becoming anti- family and aren't even having kids! So, I don't know if he just wants to have this info on hand, but Father D asked Corey, since Corey has more connections here in Utah, if he could recommend a nice Mormon urologist to him that does vasectomy reversals. So Corey gave all of us some of that backstory and taught the kids some new vocabulary and Joseph was on a phone call with someone in Guatemala and didn't hear the 20 minutes of context lead up, but Joseph walked in as Corey said "I don't want to go to a Catholic Urologist..." and then Corey turned and looked at Joseph and they started laughing. The interruptions are probably a little hard, when they lead to him having to catch up on work hours, but I think Corey enjoys having such interesting friends and interesting stories to tell us.

Christmas Is Here

It's CHRISTMAS!!!

Let's all sing it with President Trump: "Christmas is here! Christmas is here!"

It's CHRISTMAS!!!!!

I let the kids do the photo documentary this morning. The kids got up early around 3:30 am, but since there wasn't much loot in the stockings, they just went back to bed. So since they were nice to us by not being noisy at a crazy early hour, we were nice to them and we got up around 8. We met in the front room to see the presents the kids had gotten for each other and for us. 

Next, we headed over to the side room for opening gifts from "Santa" aka Mom and Dad. Corey had a unique numbering system again. The kids would pick up a present, find the small number on it, tell the number to Corey, Corey would look it up on his spreadsheet, and reveal the name of the gift's recipient on the big screen. 

We soon got to a point where everyone had received a gift except for Daniel, who was having a hard time understanding how this unjust system worked. 

I knew one of the sized of Daniel's gifts, so we grabbed one of the presents that had a remote control car in it for him. He was very happy to open it. Owen saw it, then looked at the board game that he had opened, and gave it back to me as he said "Not this one..." He wanted a car like Daniel. And he knew there was one, since he had been at the store with me when I bought them. Sophi got the biggest gift - a huge Friend's Lego set Amusement Park. 

Mel had sent us a package with letters for everyone and some small gifts. She made three little cars out of clay for Peter - Peter holding his big and his very tiny red cars - 

And she got me three lovely sets of earrings - a tree of life, pretty bronze oak leaves, and some red cardinals to remind me of my promised land of Virginia. The kids continue to find and open their gifts. 

A present for me - Corey got me a new phone! Yay! And it's an iphone! Ethan will be so happy for me, no more poor quality photos!

The girls built their legos at the kitchen table - 

Owen, Daniel, and Peter liked this marble run set I got at Kid to Kid. 

Corey was feeling a little sick today, as were Lily and Peter, so we didn't go over to Corey's parents' house or anything. We stayed home and it was fine. Peter was being super fussy tonight though...

I'm a little worried he might have an ear infection like he did a year ago. I took him for a late drive to calm him down and gave him some Tylenol before Corey put him to bed tonight. He was doing better after that. Don't be sick Peter!  

Playing with the little blue and green cars that Mel made. So it wasn't our normal Christmas with all the usual family traditions, but it was still a good day and I think it was a good Christmas for the kids.